Greetings, friends, and welcome
to another broadcast of the Old School Primitive Baptist with
Elder Don Martin, Sr. Stay tuned for another gospel
message of God's free and sovereign grace. I want to invite your
attention, if God permits for a little bit, to the book of
Ezekiel. Ezekiel in the Old Testament,
and in chapter 34, I want to attempt to correlate
the 34th chapter of Ezekiel in with the New Testament, which
I always attempt to do. If I ever start in the Old Testament,
whether it's reading the Psalms or as Brother Buddy did, I like
to try to correlate that in and bring it into the New Testament
Gospel. and express the example that
is left for us in the Old Testament as it has been prophesied and
or fulfilled in the New Testament and New Covenant. But in the
34th chapter of Ezekiel, now keep in mind this is about 595
years before the birth of Jesus Christ. And the prophet Ezekiel
was moved of God by his spirit to prophesy certain things. Now
in this particular chapter, in referencing God's sheep, and
regarding the children of Israel, and there are in essence various synonymous titles of
the people of God. For instance, we're called the
children of God, the elect of God, those ordained of God, for
as many as believe, or as many as were ordained to life eternal,
or believe, the Bible says in the book of Acts. We're called
the weak. in regarding the planning of
the Lord. We are the plants of God. We are the trees of righteousness. But also, God refers to us as
His sheep. And then on the other side of
the spectrum, He refers to those of His non-elect church, outside
of His sovereign mercy, as goats. Now, there are two types of folks
in regarding this synonymous title of God's people. In the
world, we that are the believers in Christ are the sheep of God. And those outside the realm of
the elect calling of God's grace are the goats. Now nowhere in
the scripture is there ever an analogy or a teaching of any
of the prophets or the Lord Jesus Christ himself where a goat was
ever changed into a sheep. Or a sheep was ever changed into
a goat. You're either one or the other
by determined, ordained purpose of God before the foundation
of the world. And the reason why I can say
that is because those who are the sheep of God, the children
of God, the elect of God, have their names written in the Lamb's
Book of Life before the foundation of the world. Now there are no
goat's names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. There are only
the sheep of God's names written there. And there's only one good
shepherd that's going to be manifested in time to be the shepherd over
this sheep flock, which is of God's chosen, appointed, elect
heirs of grace. Now, in reading from the 34th
chapter of Ezekiel, if you'll follow me, if God give you a
desire and you have the Bible with you, chapter 34, verse 11. For thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, I, even I, will go search my sheep, and seek them out.
As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among
his sheep, that are scattered, so will I seek out my sheep and
will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered
in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from
the and gather them from the countries, and will bring them
to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel
by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture,
and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be. There shall they lay in a good
fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains
of Israel. I will feed my flock, and I will
cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that
which was lost and bring again that which was driven away. And
I will bind up that which was broken and will strengthen that
which was sick. I will destroy the fat and the
strong. I will feed them with judgment. Now, if you'll take and just
notice, in that portion of Scripture, chapter 34, from verse 11 through
verse 16, there is ten locations there, at least ten, that I see,
because I've got them circled, where it says, I will. The Lord
God Almighty had inspired Ezekiel to write these words, and he
said, I will go search my sheep and seek them out. And he goes
on to say, I will seek out my sheep, in verse 12, in verse
13, and I will bring them out from the people and gather them
from the countries, in verse 14. I will feed them in a good
pasture, verse 15. I will feed my flock and I will
cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. The Lord God, he
is by his will, going to cause this to occur, and he says, I
will feed them, and he says, and I will cause them to lie
down. Now, sheep and creatures, they
lie down when they get tired. And there's other reasons why,
for instance, cattle. But the guests can probably express
more about why cows, on an occasion, you will drive down the road
and look over in the pasture, and there they are, they're all
laying down. I mean, for some reason, they're
all just laying down. They're not under a tree. They're
just laying down. There's something about the barometer,
I think, and something that they have been given of God as a creature
that can determine something that's going to occur, whether
rain, storm, or whatever. And they lay down for some reason.
And of course, cattle being those of the animal kingdom that trail
one another, If one of them begins, or two of them, three of them
begin to lay down, I guess maybe the rest of them just kind of
follow suit. I don't know. But most of the time, you see
them out there just meandering around grazing and eating grass. But then on another occasion,
I've gone by and up for raw livers, cattle ranches, and they're all
laying down. I don't know why, but I do know
this much. That Jesus said this in the New
Testament, in Matthew, I believe it's 11, verse 27, verse 28,
For coming to me, O ye that are laboring, and are heavy laden,
and I'll give you rest. Now, what is the rest that God
was referring to, the Lord Jesus referring to? He was speaking
to those of Judaism. He was speaking to the Jews and
the Pharisees and scribes and others around about in his public
ministry. He said, you come unto me and
I'll give you rest. Now the rest that he was referring
to was the fact that under the Old Covenant, Old Testament,
and the law and the statutes and commandments, Israel was
called to obedience to the law, every jot and tittle of it. And
the law of God is perfect, and the law of God is holy. It is
a sanctified list of commandments that are some 300 and some odd
long regarding all the commandments of God. Now the Ten Commandments,
as we know, as the moral commandments, are segregated into the moral
aspect of what God demands His people. But yet you have dietary
laws, you have civil laws, you have various laws and commandments
and statutes that God had given Israel that amount up to, like
I say, more than 300 and some odd, if you were to count them
all up. So the Ten Commandments are really the Ten Mortal Commandments.
There are many more commandments. For instance, the children of
Israel were not allowed to eat certain creatures. And I recall certain aspects
of it was if it did not have fins and scales, as far as being
a sea creature, you were not to eat it. In other words, if
it did not have both fins and scales, you were not supposed
to eat of it. It was an unclean thing. There
were other things that were unclean. If I recall, I think a rabbit
might have been an unclean thing. And you wasn't supposed to eat,
I can't remember how it was spelled out in there, but I think that
if it does not have a cloven hoof and chew its cud, it was
unclean, if I recall. Unless I got it backwards. Cloven
hooves. And chew his cud. And there were
many things dietarily that God had called out the children of
Israel not to partake of. Well, swine was one of them. That's why today a Jew that is
under the old covenant law in Judaism and even in Islam, they
won't eat a pig. It's an unclean thing. But if
you recall, in the book of Acts, when God dropped down before
Peter, as it was a sheet before him, come down from above and
showed him these various creatures, and he said to him, he said,
Peter, he said, none of these things are unclean. And he questioned God. He said,
Lord, I can't partake of those things. I mean, here he was a
Jew. He was brought up that these
things are unclean. And God that spoke to him, he
said, these things, don't call those things unclean that I said
are clean. Oh, when God makes them clean,
they're clean and you can partake of all that which God has made
as long as it's done for the glory and praise of Christ Jesus.
Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do it all in the name
of Jesus and partake of it and give Him the glory. That's where
we're at today, free from the law of the dietary thing. We're
free from the law. under the restraint of commandments.
Now, the moral commandments, the ten commandments of God,
upon the covenant of grace in this dispensation that we live
today, to those who are born again of the Spirit of God and
have come to know and believe on the person of Jesus Christ,
they have those laws, the moral law of God, written upon our
hearts and our minds that we might be made aware of those
things, and continually be made aware of them, that we know what
is expected of God, and when we do otherwise, we are going
to be chastened for disobedience. But it's not that we're under
the duty and obligation, because we are those that live now by
the Spirit of Christ, not by the law and commandments. Therefore,
we are those who live in the covenant of grace by the redemptive
work and mediatorship of the Lord Jesus Christ who come to
seek in the safe centers. We find it in verse 12 in the
text here that I've read, as a shepherd seeketh out his flock
in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered, so
will I seek out my sheep. In the New Testament, we find
where Jesus said in the Gospels that I had come to seek and to
save my sheep. Now, is he doing that? Yes, he
is. Is he continuing to do it? Yes,
he is. I remember one time, I may have said this before you may
recall, but I remember one time when my children were younger
and one of them was going to a Christian school and I was
asked to come over and speak in a chapter. at this particular
school at the time. And I said, well, what can I
go speak on that may be of some profit to these young folks that
might be on a level or category that they can perceive? And I thought about it, and I
thought about it. And it was just brought to my
awareness, the fact that God is the creator of all things.
And he did so by the person of Jesus Christ, who is the Word
of God that was made flesh and dwelt among us, John says in
chapter 1. who before he had an earthen mortal body, was with
the Father, and by Him all things were made that were made. That's
what the Bible says. So in the beginning, when God
had made all things that have been made, when He made the sun,
the earth, and the firmament thereof, and everything about
what we know as this planet we dwell on, which is, I've heard
it said that the earth is like a spaceship, And in a sense,
it is. It's like we're on a spaceship.
We're out here in the middle of nowhere. We're just spinning
around in an orbit. And the orbit's, you know, they
say that the Earth is moving out of its orbit. I can't remember,
but it's a, you'd have to take a micrometer to get it down to
how small it would be every hundred years or something. It's almost,
I don't know how they've determined this, I don't even know. And
I don't even know if it's a fact, I get this hurt, scientifically
this was a true thing. But, now we've heard of lately
that because of the Earth, rotating as it is and being in the orbit
that it is in, that the magnetism of the Earth has changed somewhat
to where that what was due north on a compass, say, five, six
years ago, now is a little bit off of dead due north. Even to
the point to where some airports have had to take their runways
and change their numbers of them and cause the designation on
the compass to be changed from what it was a few years back.
Now isn't that something? And yet God has determined all
these things to be and has created all the things to create. And
so I said, well, what am I going to speak on? Getting back to
the subject here. And I said that God is the creator
of all things. I mean, they know that. They've
heard that. The Bible teaches that. But here's what my question
I posed to them was. Is God finished creating things? I pose that question to a group
of teenagers and young adults in this chapel service. Is God
through creating things? And of course, when you first
think about it, you think about creation of the planets, the
stars, the moon, the earth, and all things as we know today.
And that it is quite evident that God had created these things
in six days, and on the seventh day He rested. It didn't say
any more about creating any more after that. After the six days,
all the things that were created were created. And God rested
and ceased from His works, and did not order His darling Son
Jesus to call into being anything else after that. in the realm
of what we know as creation. Yet, God is continuing to create
new creatures in Christ Jesus. Because the Bible says in Corinthians,
Paul says, if any man be in Christ, he becomes a new creature. And
so therefore, any person that comes to a saving knowledge of
Jesus Christ by the operation of God's free and sovereign mercy
is created a new creature in Christ. And so the message was,
yes, God is still creating things and they are people born into
the kingdom of God's darling son Jesus that are made new creatures
in Christ and they are made spiritual beings. They are made to be witnesses
as the children of God through the new birth and through a spiritual
operation of grace alone. And so, yes, God is still causing
people to be new creatures. He says that's the main thing
that means anything to God. It's not circumcision or uncircumcision. It's not whether you're a Jew
or whether you're a Gentile. It's whether you're a new creature
or not. That's what it says in Galatians chapter 5. And then
new creatures are the Israel of God as we know it today. Not those who come from the blood
lineage of Abraham that live over yonder. In Israel, as we
know it as a nation. For the blood lineage of those
twelve tribes are so deluded and polluted, you can't distinguish
it today. Where is Israel today? It's just
a country that we know it has a border. As far as the people
go, they're so intermingled and interbred. The twelve tribes
of Israel are not distinguishable today. God's Israel, listen to
me, God's Israel are those that are chosen in Christ Jesus that
are brought to a saving knowledge of Christ through the operation
of His Spirit in this New Covenant, New Testament dispensation. We
are the Israel of God. We are God's church, we are His
bride, we are His beloved children. And among the remnant of some
of those who are of the bloodline of Abraham over there in that
land called Israel, I am persuaded that there are some that are
the elect of God as well. For out of every nation turned,
God has a people now. And they are those who are called
by God's Holy Spirit, quickened and made alive to the things
of Christ, caused to believe upon Him as Savior, Lord, and
Redeemer of their souls, and made witnesses of that great
salvation, so rich and so free. Yes, I will feed my flock and
I will cause them to lie down. This was, again, I repeat, 595
years before the birth of Jesus Christ and for His public earthly
ministry. Now, I'm going to ask you to
go to John chapter 10, and now we're going to go and we're going
to pick up on the prophecy that Ezekiel talked about in 34 in
John chapter 10. In John chapter 10, the Lord
Jesus Christ had expressed that he is a good shepherd. John chapter 10. Look at verse 11 with me. John
chapter 10 verse 11. I am the good shepherd, and the
good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is
in harrowing, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not,
seeeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. And the
wolf catcheth them, and scattereth them as sheep. In other words,
Jesus Christ is saying that a person is hired to be a shepherd. He don't really have a compassionate
attachment to the sheep as that one who is the true shepherd. He's just hired to watch over
them, but when the wolf comes along and threatens the flock,
where's the howling going? He's going to hit the road because
he don't want to get ate up and get into an entangled fight with
the wolf that's coming after his sheep, or the sheep that
he's been paid to watch over. But the Bible goes on to say,
And look, it says in verse 12, continuing on, it says, This
hireling will flee, and the wolf will catch them and scatter the
sheep. Now the sheep in the chapter 34 of Ezekiel had been scattered. And the part that I read to you
in chapter 34 of Ezekiel, starting verse 11, was that God is saying,
I am going to bring back my sheep that have been scattered. those
of natural Israel that have been scattered, as well as now we
of the New Covenant, New Testament, that are Gentiles by natural
birth, that are included in this remnant of God. Jesus is now
gathering together all of his children out of every tongue,
kindred, and nation that are his sheep. In verse 13, the hireling
fled. Because he is a hireling. In other words, this guy hired
to be the shepherd, he takes off because he is hired to watch
over the sheep. And he's going to look out for
his life before he is the sheep. He cares more about himself than
he does the sheep. But the good shepherd cares more
about the sheep than he does himself. Because Jesus comes
to give himself for them. and for we which believe upon
him. Look at verse 14. I am the good shepherd, and know
my sheep, and am known of mine. Oh, listen to me. Jesus Christ
knows his sheep, and he is known of his. The Bible says, well, let me
read it to you. It's in the same chapter, but
it's over a couple more verses. Go over to verse 26 of chapter
10. Just skip on down here. Jesus says this, but ye believe
not. In other words, there were a
group of Jews and Pharisees that were in this crowd of people
that was listening to him preach. And he looked at some of them
and he said, ye believe not. And Jesus, knowing the hearts
and intents of all men, he knew who it was that was not receptable
or receivable of the message he was preaching. And it says
that ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep. Now, remember I said there were
two types. There were goats and sheep, and
regarding the analogy of God's people. Goats are not God's people. Goats are those that are of the
non-elect, of the unsaved, of those who are not going to experience
immortal glory as their eternal place. The Bible says, you believe
not because you're not my sheep. Listen to verse 27. My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. He says, my sheep hear my voice. Only
God's sheep shall hear the voice of Christ when he calls them
to come. The rest cannot hear it. In John,
I believe it's probably about chapter 6, John writes and says
that they that be of God, heareth God's word. They that be not
of God, heareth not the words of God. And the Bible says in
Corinthians, Paul writes and says, for the natural mind, the
natural man, the natural mind cannot discern or understand
the things of the spirit. For the natural man is by nature
unable to receive the things of the Spirit of God. And so
Jesus goes on to say that my sheep hear my voice, I know them,
and they follow me. He didn't say they were going
to try to follow him, did he? He said, they're going to follow
me. They're going to know His voice and they're going to follow
Him. It's passive. What I mean by
passive is that it's not a duty work of man that they follow
Jesus. It is a work of grace that we
follow Jesus. Listen to me a second. We are
blessed to believe. We are blessed to follow. We
don't do anything to merit the blessings as some preachers that
will preach to you, call themselves primitive Baptists, that you
have to do this and this and this to merit the blessings of
God. That is a lie. I'm preaching
unto you what Jesus said, and he said that my sheep hear my
voice. They're not going to be persuaded
by men to hear it. They're not going to be by some
means and methods of man made able to hear it. He says they're
going to be able to hear it because when I call them, they're supernaturally
going to be made able to hear me. Because they're going to
be given ears to hear the spiritual truth of the matter, and it says
then, it says, and then they follow me. Simple as that. But there are many that call
themselves primitive Baptists that will stand up and say that,
well, we know that in Isaiah, the Old Testament, that it says
that if ye be willing and obedient, ye shall taste the good of the
land. That's a true thing for the children
of Israel. It ain't a true thing for the
children of God in this dispensation of grace. For it is a fact of
this, that Jesus said, and even expressed to Paul by the Spirit,
he said, Paul writes this and says, that God works in you both
to will and to do of his good pleasure. Now, brothers and sisters,
that ain't duty. That is not obligated works.
That is an operation of the Spirit of Christ within the believer
as Jesus Christ calls them out to walk in this world. It is
a work of grace. And the Bible says, and also
Paul had wrote, and he says this, he says, For he, Jesus, who has
begun a good work in you, shall perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ. I've got a performer, and his
name is Jesus. It ain't by my efforts and works
and obedience that merits me anything besides heartache and
sadness. When I try to do something to
please God by my own efforts, it's always a failure. But when
Christ works in me, causing me to will and to do, it's always
a blessing. Because he initiates it and he
brings it to pass, he gets the glory for it. No man can take
any iota of the blessing and the glory. The Bible says that
there's none that shall stand before God in glory in his presence. God said early on, he says in
the Psalms, I will not share my glory with another. And any
man, woman, boy, or girl that stand before God, they think
in their mind and say, well, Lord, I'm glad I chose you and
that I'm not like so-and-so and so-and-so. That will never happen
in the front of God Almighty. Because when they see Him as
He is, and they stand before Him in that glorious day as a
child of grace, they're going to know that it was all by grace,
that it was all by divine mercy, that it was all by God's sovereignty
that He sought and seeks out sinners today. Jesus said that
I've come to seek and to save sinners. And those that I've
come to seek and save are my sheep. And those of my sheep
are going to hear my voice. And those that hear my voice,
they're going to follow me. They're not going to try to.
They're going to follow me because I'm going to cause them to. Oh,
I love to preach about the cause. I love to preach about the causes
of God. You know, the Bible says in Psalm
65, 4, I believe is the reference. It says, Blessed is the man whom
thou choosest and causes to approach him to thee. That's one of my
favorite verses, brother. I can take off on that and preach
till I run out of breath. All He causes His people to live
in a manner that is pleasing to Him. He causes us to be different
folks. He causes us to be a testimony.
The Bible says in Acts chapter 1 that when the Holy Ghost comes
upon you, Jesus said that ye shall be witnesses unto me. He
didn't say you ought to try to be. Oh, in most churches they
teach you, they say you need to learn how to witness. Hello!
Jesus said, you shall be witnesses. You don't go learn how to witness
through some seminar or some instruction booklet like I have
been involved in in times past in some of the missionary endeavors.
No, you are a witness. You cannot help but be a witness
if you're of God. And if you be of God, you're
going to testify of that. The Bible says, let the redeemed
of the Lord say so. Can they help not say so? I don't
believe so. Because there's something within
them that's different than what was there before. That old man
has been taken and eradicated. And he's now dominated by that
new man called Christ in you, the hope of glory. Oh, let me
tell you something. We are those blessed of God to
live a life that's different from the world and that which
we lived in times past. That's why God says if any man
be in Christ, they have become a new creature. They're different.
I heard one preacher say one time, he said he was out talking
to somebody. He was in a restaurant and some
fellow that he had known, a neighbor or something, sat down beside
him and got talking about the things of the Bible. And he just
asked him, he said, well, how do you stand with the Lord? What
do you think about the Lord Jesus Christ? He said, well, you know,
I believe the Bible and so forth. But he says, you know, I can't really go along with
all the stuff that they try to preach and teach in churches,
and I don't go to church anywhere." He said, you know, it's just
nothing but a bunch of do's and don'ts. And the preacher said
to him, he said, well, he says, you know, I don't believe that
the true gospel is a bunch of do's and don'ts. I believe the
true gospel is just as simple as this, that he that believeth
on the Lord Jesus Christ, shall never perish, but have everlasting
life. Simple as that. He said, yeah, but they always
try to say you need to do this and need to do that. And he said,
well, he says, you know something? He says, let me tell you the
truth of the matter and my own experience as well, the preacher
said. He said, when God came and revealed himself to me and
I saw myself as a needy sinner, and was caused to repent. Now
listen, I said caused to repent, because unless you're caused
to repent, you ain't going to. Repentance is a work of grace
just like any other part of salvation. Every bit of it, from beginning
to end, is of grace. And I was caused to repent and
call upon He who God caused me to believe upon, who was Jesus
Christ. I called upon Him to save me and forgive me of my
sins and redeem me. and to wash me and cleanse me
by his blood that I was revealed was the only way I could get
rid of my sins. And he says when God does that
to an individual, it takes the want to and changes it. Instead of wanting to please
self, and wanting to do the things that are sinful by nature, it
takes the want-to and changes it. It's not what people say
you ought to do, it's what that want-to that's been changed in
you that causes you to do. He says, your want to has changed. And I never forgot that, because
I thought that was a good analogy of what happens to a person who
is born of the Spirit of God. Their want to has changed. You
know, before I became born of God's Spirit, I never darkened
the door of a church from the time I was about 11 years old
until the time that I was brought to believe on Christ at age 27
years old. And when I come to that time
when Christ got my attention and revealed to me my sinfulness
and caused me to look unto Jesus for sin to be removed and to
be born of the Spirit, from that moment on, in that experience
of grace, my want to, for the first time, desire to want to
read the Bible. My desire for the first time
was want to go seek out a church where I could go hear more about
this Jesus that I was told that seeks and saves sinners. It was
for the first time in my life that I had a want to, to be around
people that had this same desire in their heart and want to, to
gather together and worship and sing and hear the gospel preached. You see, your want to has changed. And that's what the whole difference
is about, is that your want to has changed. The Bible says,
Paul said, in times past, how to perform that which is good
I find not within me. But he says now, he says, wherein
in times past I was free from righteousness. In other words,
he was exempt from righteousness. He says, but now sin no longer
has dominion over me. For now I walk in a new way to
the new man. And that my righteousness now
is that of Christ Jesus, for he is my righteousness. And the
fruit that I now bear is that which is of Christ Jesus working
in me. And he says that sin no longer
has dominion over you. That's another one of the great
evidences of salvation is sin does not have dominion over you. and if sin has dominion over
you, I can assure you, if you're a child of God, it will not be
for long, because whom He loveth, He chastens. You've heard me
preach on that. Whom the Lord loveth, He chastens.
And He takes a rod of reproof, and He corrects us, and reproves
us, and changes us, and turns our direction towards the way
we need to be walking, towards Zion, that holy city of God.
In conclusion, The Bible says, and I'll give unto them, in verse
28 of the 10th chapter of John. In verse 28, to those that are
my sheep, that hear my voice, and those that follow me, he
says, I give unto them eternal life. And they shall, what? Never perish. Neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand. For my Father which gave them
me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them
out of my Father's hand. And then he says this, I and
my Father are one. Now you talk about the oneness
of Christ and the Father, scriptural support for it, there it is right
there. There it is right there, 10th chapter and verse 30. It's got two, four, six words
in it. I and my Father are one. Okay? Fourteenth chapter of John. Philip said to Jesus, Lord, how
long are you going to be with us before you're going to show
us the Father? And do you remember what Jesus
said to Philip? He said, Philip, how long have
I been with you? And have you not known me? For
if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. For the Father
God, who is the Oneness here with the Son, hath came from
heaven's glory, took upon himself a moral body, born of that beloved
chosen Virgin Mary, begot from her womb that baby, wrapped in
swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger, whose wise men from
afar came to see this thing. And it was a human-born baby
that God himself took and enthralled. And he was born, that of the
Holy Ghost. Now, we've been talking about
on an internet forum about the humanity of Jesus Christ. Now,
you can get down to so much specifics and assumptions and speculation
that where you can be any subject to death and go beyond the scriptures
on anything. But, I mean, I've had some brethren
talk about this and this and that. You can say all you want
to say. They talked about, well, does
Jesus have a sin nature? Well, I believe he was a hundred
percent man, but he was not tainted with the depraved blood that
Adam had passed on through humanity. His blood was not tainted with
sin. Jesus' blood was that which was
of the Holy Ghost. Now we know, it has been proven
scientifically, medically, that the male sperm determines the
genetic male or female of a human being. God Almighty, if it could
be so designated, God Almighty, by the Holy Spirit of God, impregnated
Mary with the sperm of the Holy Spirit, and that was the God-Man
Jesus Christ. That union of the Spirit with
Mary's egg became the Man Jesus, the God-Man Jesus. that was holy,
righteous, tempted in every way, yet without sin, the Bible says.
And then the Bible says that God had made him to be sin for
us. He didn't make him a sinner.
He made Him to become sin. How did He do that? He bore our
sin on the cross of Calvary. Every one of the left children
of God's sins was born on Christ's body on Calvary's cross. He who knew no sin became sin
for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's what the Bible says. Check it out. God made him to
be sin who knew no sin that we might be made the righteous of
God in him. Yes, the God-man Jesus Christ
was all man. He ate, didn't he? He slept,
didn't he? Didn't he weep? The shortest
verse in the Bible, in John's Gospel, Jesus wept. He wept. He was a man. He was a human
being. He wept over Jerusalem. He ate. He fixed fish and ate. He even
ate in a resurrected body. He did. He supped with the brethren
that was on the seashore the time that he, after his resurrection,
he fixed fish and said, come and dine. And he ate with them. Let me tell you something, Jesus
Christ was as much man as any man could be, except he did not
have the ability to sin because he did not have a depraved, cursed
blood nature that Adam passed on to all mankind. He was of
the Holy Ghost, and that genetic union with Mary made him God-man,
perfect in every way, without sin. I conclude by saying this, I
am the Father One. I always have been and always will
be. In heaven, the Bible says in
the book of Revelation, there will be that day when all of
the population of the world shall be raised in the general resurrection. They will come and they will
be brought before the throne of God. And there beside the
God Almighty, you say, what's He going to look like? I don't
know, but I'll tell you one thing. I know who's going to be sitting
at the right hand of Him. The Bible says that Jesus is
going to be at His right hand and that He is the Lamb of God
who was slain before the foundation of the world. He's going to be
there. I do know that before that throne
that God is going to say to the angels, you bring forth before
me the elect sheep of mine. Oh, you bring my remnant church
before me, because I want them to be told that they can enter
into the presence of my darling son Jesus, the Lamb of God, who
giveth himself on Calvary in their behalf, that they might
go into the joys and the bliss of eternal heaven and the glory
thereof. Oh, but he says also, after that,
I want you to bring forth all those that are of the non-elect
of God, all those that I have not been pleased to save out
of the ruin of mankind, and bring them as the ghosts of God before
me, that I might say unto them, no matter how much you think
you've done regarding religion, no matter what you think and
have said about being good enough, He says, Depart from me ye that
have worked iniquity, for I know you not. Depart from me into
the dregs of hell and everlasting darkness, where the flame dieth
not. That's going to be the end result.
There's going to be two dividing groups. There's going to be sheep
on the right hand, that's what the scripture says, and goats
on the left. And the sheep are going to inherit
eternal glory. with the joys of heaven's bliss
and the saints of God to sing that everlasting chorus of grace,
grace, oh how sweet and amazing is that grace that sought me
out and saved me. Whereas the rest of the part
and to be never seen again, they shall be exempt from the face
of God forever. Nope, Jesus Christ. has said,
I have come to seek and save my sheep. He is successful in
all that he said he would do and that he is still doing. He's
still seeking and saving his sheep. He's still bringing them
into a relationship with him through the operation of his
Holy Spirit. He's still causing dead alien
sinners to be quickened and be made alive and see his son Jesus
as their only hope and help of salvation. And so we can rejoice
this morning that Christ has given us this love book to we
which have been caused to believe, to behold in its pages the words
of hope and glory and praise, that we can read from it and
rejoice in it and sing the praises of God.